"Bashful!" echoed the daughter, "bashful is no name for it."
"Why don't you encourage him a little more? Some men have to be taught how to do their courting. He's a good catch."
"Encourage him!" said the daughter, "he cannot take the most palpable hint. Why, only last night when I sat all alone on the sofa, he perched up in a chair as far away as he could get. I asked him if he didn't think it strange that a man's arm and a woman's waist seemed always to be the same length, and what do you think he did?"
"Why, just what any sensible man would have done -- tried it."
"NO," said the daughter. "HE ASKED ME IF I COULD FIND A PIECE OF STRING SO WE COULD MEASURE AND SEE IF IT WAS SO."
"There just is not any justice in this world," said Mulla Nasrudin to a friend. "I used to be a 97-pound weakling, and whenever I went to the beach with my girl, this big 197-pound bully came over and kicked sand in my face. I decided to do something about it, so I took a weight-lifting course and after a while I weighed 197 pounds."
"So what happened?" his friend asked.
"WELL, AFTER THAT," said Nasrudin, "WHENEVER I WENT TO THE BEACH WITH MY GIRL, A 257-POUND BULLY KICKED SAND IN MY FACE."
"What's the best way to teach a girl to swim?" a friend asked Mulla Nasrudin.
"First you put your left arm around her waist," said the Mulla. "Then you gently take her left hand and..."
"She's my sister," interrupted the friend.
"OH, THEN PUSH HER OFF THE DOCK," said Nasrudin.
Mulla Nasrudin said to his girlfriend. "What do you say we do something different tonight, for a change?"
"O.K.," she said. "What do you suggest?"
"YOU TRY TO KISS ME," said Nasrudin, "AND I WILL SLAP YOUR FACE!"
"What do you want with your old letters?" the girl asked her ex-boyfriend, Mulla Nasrudin. "I have given you back your ring. Do you think I am going to use your letters to sue you or something?"
"OH, NO," said Nasrudin, "IT'S NOT THAT. I PAID A FELLOW TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS TO WRITE THEM FOR ME AND I MAY WANT TO USE THEM OVER AGAIN."
"What made you quarrel with Mulla Nasrudin?"
"Well, he proposed to me again last night."
"Where was the harm in it?"
"MY DEAR, I HAD ACCEPTED HIM THE NIGHT BEFORE."
"And are mine the only lips, Mulla, you have kissed?" asked she.
"YES," said Nasrudin, "AND THEY ARE THE SWEETEST OF ALL."
"Well, Nasrudin, my boy," said his uncle, "my congratulations! I hear you are engaged to one of the pretty Noyes twins."
"Rather!" replied Mulla Nasrudin, heartily.
"But," said his uncle, "how on earth do you manage to tell them apart?"
"OH," said Nasrudin. "I DON'T TRY!"
Mulla Nasrudin was looking over greeting cards.
The salesman said, "Here's a nice one -- "TO THE ONLY GIRL I EVER LOVED."
"WONDERFUL," said Nasrudin. "I WILL TAKE SIX."
The young lady had said she would marry him, and Mulla Nasrudin was holding her tenderly. "I wonder what your folks will think," he said. "Do they know that I write poetry?"
"Not yet, Honey," she said. "I HAVE TOLD THEM ABOUT YOUR DRINKING AND GAMBLING, BUT I THOUGHT I'D BETTER NOT TELL THEM EVERYTHING AT ONCE."
Mulla Nasrudin had just asked his newest girlfriend to marry him. But she seemed undecided.
"If I should say no to you" she said, "would you commit suicide?"
"THAT," said Nasrudin gallantly, "HAS BEEN MY USUAL PROCEDURE."
Mulla Nasrudin complained to the health department about his brothers.
"I have got six brothers," he said. "We all live in one room. They have too many pets. One has twelve monkeys and another has twelve dogs. There's no air in the room and it's terrible! You have got to do something about it."
"Have you got windows?" asked the man at the health department.
"Yes," said the Mulla.
"Why don't you open them?" he suggested.
"WHAT?" yelled Nasrudin, "AND LOSE ALL MY PIGEONS?"
A patent medicine salesman at the fair was shouting his claims for his Rejuvenation Elixir. "If you don't believe the label, just look at me," he shouted. "I take it and I am 300 years old."
"Is he really that old?" asked a farmer of the salesman's young assistant, Mulla Nasrudin.
"I REALLY DON'T KNOW," said Nasrudin. "YOU SEE, I HAVE ONLY BEEN WITH HIM FOR 180 YEARS."
